I have never made a secret out of the fact that I
strongly dislike Tennessee Williams’ ubiquitous “American Classic” A Streetcar Named Desire. Perhaps that says less about the play itself
and more about the stage of life I was in when I first read it. Either way, something about its disparaging
and aggressively bleak tone just didn’t appeal to me, and still doesn’t (not
that that excuses the romantic liberties taken by the 1951 film). That said, I do understand why it’s a
classic, and why people still read it, perform it, watch it, and discuss it- be
it fact or fiction, few things are as compulsively watchable as the tale of the
fallen diva, the uppity jerk who’s self-centeredness brings about their own
downfall. Be it healthy or no, it’s our
continuing cultural addiction to such stories that, in my personal opinion, is
the primary reason why Streetcar
still exerts such a powerful influence on American theater and film

I begin by discussing Streetcar
because it was clearly one of the springboards for the plot of Blue Jasmine, the latest effort by
actor/director Woody Allen. Although
it’s not listed as a direct influence on the movie’s story, Cate Blanchett’s
Jasmine (or is it Jeanette?) bears a noticeably strong resemblance to Blanche
Dubois. Like Blanche, Jasmine enters the
film with assured swagger, projecting an aristocratic image of a woman
confident in herself, her wealth, and her place in society. And also like with Blanche, we almost
immediately realize that this projection is merely that, and that not only is
Jasmine no longer the woman of means she used to be, she’s also mentally
unstable.

Part of her mental instability could be attributed to the
fact that the life of vast excess she and her husband Hal (Alec Baldwin)
enjoyed was built almost entirely on lies- Hal lied to his clients and partners
(including Jasmine’s sister and her ex-husband) about the security of his
business, lied to the government about its legitimacy, and lied to Jasmine
about his fidelity. Jasmine, in turn,
lied to herself about her husband’s affairs, and lied to others about knowing
how big a crook he was- she spends the entire film claiming ignorance of his
deeds, but a telling moment in one scene suggests this is less than true. Now that all the lies have fallen away and
she has nothing left but debts (and her Louis Vuitton luggage, and a first-class
plane ticket to San Fran), she appears to be both physically and mentally
incapable of dealing with it and moving on.
However, in one of the movie’s many brilliant subtleties, it’s left
open-ended how much of her mental state resulted from the breakup of her
marriage, and how much of it had always been there, lurking beneath her veneer
of first-class contentment.

The full story of her marriage with Hal (and its many,
many disastrous consequences) is given to us piecemeal, in brief flashbacks
scattered throughout the “main” story- after Hal goes to jail and hangs
himself, Jasmine leaves New York behind and moves in with her sister Ginger in
San Francisco. The extreme normalcy of
Ginger’s life and of her working-class, boxing-loving boyfriend Chili quickly
start to offend Jasmine’s sense of what a “better life” should look like- her
initial reaction to Ginger’s small, compact apartment is a sarcastic, “It looks
so…homey!”

Jasmine’s horror at having to live below her perceived
station and at what she sees as Chili’s shortcomings quickly starts to create
rifts between herself and her sister, and even between her sister and Chili
before too long. Ginger (played by Sally
Hawkins) perfectly captures the dilemma of someone trapped between the demands
of both her family and her partner- she’s still angry and hurt about how she and
her ex were cheated by Hal, but when Chili angrily demands to know why she’s still
trying to help Jasmine (whose arrival in San Francisco has delayed his moving
in with Ginger), she helplessly responds, “Because she’s my sister!”

In another marked parallel to Streetcar, Jasmine does make some tottering steps towards giving
her life a new direction- she takes up a job as a dentist’s secretary (an
affair that eventually goes horribly wrong) in order to pay for classes in
computers and interior design. She even
manages to find a well-off, single guy in Dwight Westlake (Peter Sarsgaard),
the proverbial Mitch who could offer her a way to come to terms with the past,
but once again, her immense capacity for lies and self-delusion rears its ugly
head, and starts to douse the bridge with oil before it’s even been fully
built.

The acting in the movie is across-the-board excellent,
easily the film’s greatest asset, and the highlight is Cate Blanchett’s multi-tiered
performance as Jasmine, which (I believe) should guarantee her an early spot on
the list of Oscar nominees. Jasmine
barely registers as sympathetic- an encounter with her wayward son, who
disappeared after Hal’s crimes were unmasked, goes about as well for her as
most would expect- but the indefagitable Blanchett still gets across that,
sometimes, Jasmine isn’t quite so blind to how much she hurts both herself and
others. She’s not the only one to get a
spotlight moment though- Bobby Canavale’s Chili gets not one, but two great scenes
when he learns that Ginger (partially because of Jasmine’s urging) has started
an affair with a guy she met at a party.

One of the movie’s recurring motifs is the song “Blue
Moon”- as Jasmine explains to literally everyone, whether or not they’re
listening, it was the song playing when she first met Hal at a party. Its constant reintroduction in the background
is almost like a personal Siren for her, calling her back into remembrance of
and obsession over the past, a lost time she would love nothing more than to
have back. That, of course, is where her
character’s greatest tragedy lies- she can’t have her former life back, and to
some extent she realizes that. Desire
for a dream, however, can often prove far more alluring than acceptance of a "lesser" reality.

If there is one problem with Blue Jasmine, it’s the screenplay.
Woody Allen is known for sharp, funny, and often brutally dark dialogue,
but while this movie has its moments of wit and humor, it also tends towards
being overly repetitive and expositional.
I got tired hearing of about Hal being a crook, his affairs, the FBI
investigation, his suicide, and Jasmine’s subsequent (and very public) mental
breakdown by about the 5th time it was hashed out in a given scene, so the next 5 times it was discussed were just plain tiresome. Thankfully, although it is a distraction, it’s
never long or sustained enough to completely break the film, and as I said
before, its saving grace is that no one in the cast is dead weight. Blue
Jasmine is one of the best English-language films of the year thus far, and
has a better chance than The Butler
of being on the shortlist for Oscar nominations. Definitely see this one while it’s in
theaters if you get the chance.